Leaders – Who Needs Them?
The Washington Times wonders “who will replace Dobson?”
Mr. Dobson, 72, who resigned last week as board chairman of one of the country’s most influential evangelical organizations, is one of the last of a great generation of evangelical leaders.
Some have died: the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority founder; theologian Carl F.H. Henry; Florida pastor D. James Kennedy; Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright; and Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who founded L’Abri Fellowship.
Others have either retired or have passed on the bulk of their duties, such as the Rev. Billy Graham, 90; televangelist Pat Robertson, 78; author and activist Tim LaHaye, 83; and Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, 77.
“It’s a changing of the guard,” said Brian McLaren, 52, cited in 2005 by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
The article goes on to discuss a number of options from Rick Warren to Mike Huckabee (ugh – that’s all I can say – ugh).
This evangelical would like to nominate…drum roll please…NOBODY!
We discussed at great length during the primary campaign that real political power in American democracy derives from building a coalition from diversity, not becoming a voting bloc – even a pretty large one. The analogy is, of course, African-Americans. As a bloc, they have achieved almost nothing (the election of our current president notwithstanding – that is a result more of white guilt than black activism). Being a bloc allowed them to be too reliable a Democratic vote to ever have a genuine impact – they were taken for granted. After the disgrace of that last real African-American bloc leader – Jesse Jackson – internal disputes over that leadership position reduced them to irrelevance.
Starting such internal dispute over leadership seems to be Huckabee’s stock-in-trade, but smart Evangelicals are not having any of it. Warren is taking the Billy Graham route which is to rise above politics and concentrate on spirtual matters. Something Graham learned the hard way with Nixon. I have deep disagreement with Jim Wallis and other politically liberal Evangelicals, but I am grateful for their existence. They represent the counterbalance to our becoming irrelevant.
This Evangelical is not looking for “a leader.” (Quick aside: in the manner of the currently much debated Rush Limbaugh, Dobson never was a leader anyway- he was a communicator.) I have no desire to be part of a voting bloc – they are too easy neutralize.
BTW, there is a lesson for politically active Mormons in all this as well.
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